


What's It Gonna Be?

by normcorearthoe



Category: Avatar (TV), Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, M/M, Toph and Aang live together and are basically siblings, based off the Shura song, its a good song, its very gay! dont be fooled!!!!, or over past events, there's a bit of angst but its mostly teenagery, zuko's fairly happy sorry if u wanted angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2018-10-09 12:14:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10411914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/normcorearthoe/pseuds/normcorearthoe
Summary: Based of the music video for the song "What's It Gonna Be" by Shura- a really great music video by the way!Basically- Toph likes Sokka, Zuko likes Katara, Toph and Zuko are besties, they befriend each other's crush to get dirt, and it gets really gay really fast. Good stuff!!!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> STUFF TO NOTE:
> 
> Toph was emancipated at 14 and lives with Aang and Roku. She's 15 in this and a sophomore.
> 
> Aang is adopted and up until he was 12 lived with Monk Gyatso, who died. He is 15 and a sophomore.
> 
> Zuko was kicked out at 16 and lives with Iroh, his legal guardian. He is 17 and a senior in this- things are a tiny bit different, including his scar! (its still there ofc, a very important trait.)
> 
> Sokka lives with Katara and his dad. He's 17 and a senior.
> 
> Katara is 16 and a junior, and lives with Sokka and her dad.
> 
> Toph is not fully blind, but legally blind- she can see, but only shapes and colors, and has a slightly constricted field of vision- kind of similar to her seeing through earthbending. 
> 
> THAT'S ALL!
> 
> critiques are fine and welcome! kudos are even more welcome!!

If you asked Toph later on, she’d say it was Zuko’s fault. She was right, as she was about 50% of the time. But, anyway. Everything started out very, very different from how it ended.

It began with a certain dumbass accidentally bumping Toph in the hallway. 

“Ah, sorry! Didn’t see you there.” Sokka skidded to a stop and took a few steps back to the scene of the crime.

Toph punched him in the shoulder (gently, in an affectionate way). “That’s my line, asshole.” 

“Oh, sure, go there.”

“Thank you! I will. Why are you running anyway? Both I and the locker you made me crash into want to know.”

Sokka laughed. She liked when he did that. His voice had gotten deeper since she had first met him last year, and it sounded nice. It still cracked sometimes, but she kind of liked that too. “I have practice, which started five minutes ago.”

“Oh, calm down. You’re the best fencer in the school, Piandao probably loves you.”

“Well now it’s six minutes, so I sure hope so. Bye, Toph! I’ll see you later, yeah?”

Toph smirked, but she felt butterflies. “Yeah, man. Bye.” Cool, detached. Good shit, Toph. They like that.

She walked a few more feet to her locker and opened it, pulling out her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. Just one strap, because fashion. She laughed at that thought, looking down at her cargo shorts.

A voice came from behind her, startling her.

“Toph, I have something I want to discuss with you.”

“I assume from the lisp it’s Zuko, but sneaking up on a blind girl? That’s low.” Toph turned around, smiling. It was Zuko- she was being honest about the lisp but only Zuko wore red every day- his hoodie stood out from the grey walls.

“First of all, legally blind. Second, don’t you want to know what I’m talking about?”

“Sure, but not yet. I’m testing out a new playlist- tell me once we get to my place.”

“Sure.”

\---

They were neighbors, and didn’t live that far from the school. Zuko normally liked it quiet, and Toph didn’t always want to talk- when Aang had rehearsal they walked home in silence, Toph usually listening to music and Zuko thinking about whatever Zuko thought about. When they reached Toph and Aang’s house, Zuko offered a polite hello to Roku, and they walked up to her room.

Toph flopped down on her bed, her head hitting the headboard.

“Ah- shit. Okay, so, what did you want to ‘discuss’?” She sat up and flopped down again, a bit more carefully, so her feet hung off the side. She kicked her converse off, wiggling her toes.

Zuko sat next to her, a bit more gracefully and with considerably better posture- you can take the rich kid out of the mansion but you can’t take the stick out of the rich kid’s ass. Then he flopped back, his head making a soft thump on Toph’s stuffed badger. She’d never tell him, because it wasn’t the sort of thing they said, but it made her happy when he relaxed around her. It let her know he was comfortable around her- she wouldn’t judge him for it.

“Okay, dude, something is on your mind. Spit.”

Zuko groaned. “I really like Katara.”

Well that was just fascinating. “Uh… I know? You’ve been talking about it for like a month now.”

“She’s just… really pretty.”

“I wouldn’t know, but sure.”

“My point is, you like Sokka.”

He should really say that quieter if he wanted to keep his fingers. If Roku tried to bring up a boy at the dinner table she would probably throw up. “...Sure.” 

“And I don’t really know Sokka, and you don’t really know Katara, since we both only met them like a year ago and they’re really more Aang’s friends-”

“Okay, exposition. Get to the point.”

“I have a plan: we go undercover. I make friends with Sokka, and tell you what he likes, and what he looks for in relationships and stuff, and you do the same for me with Katara.”

Toph snorted. “It's a very inventive plan, but honestly kind of stupid.”

Zuko turned red. “Well, fine! Never mind then.” What a teenager.

“It’s stupid, but I’m desperate, so fine. I’ll do it.”

He paused for a moment, then nodded, staring at her ceiling. “Oh. Okay. Okay, cool. So, we’ll start tomorrow. Do you have any classes with Katara?”

“Yeah, like half of them, but we don’t sit together in any of them.”

“Same with Sokka and I. So, we have to change that. We’ll start tomorrow and compare notes in a few days.”

“Sounds good- you want to stay for dinner? I think Roku’s making spaghetti.”

Zuko slid off her bed and stood up. “Sorry- normally I would, but not tonight. My uncle said he’d cook my favorite.”

Toph sat up to smile at him. “Ooh, chicken fingers? Nice.”

“It makes me nervous how much you know about my dietary habits.”

“Uh-huh. Go eat your chicken fingers.”

Zuko laughed quietly as he walked out. “Bye, Toph.”

“Bye, kiddo.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while! Summer's been hectic but I still want to finish this. Here's day one of the plan- Zuko's side!

Zuko took a breath before walking into Physics. Confidence, confidence. You’re cool. You’re super cool. He cringed inwardly and walked in, attempting to look like he knew exactly what he was doing as he sat down next to Sokka. Which he never did. 

Sokka looked over, surprised but not necessarily in a bad way. So Zuko Hoped.

“Hey, Zuko!”

Sokka’s teeth were way too bright. Zuko found himself wanting sunglasses and he felt a little… nauseous, almost. He looked away, mumbling.

“Hi.”

Something felt weird. Sokka tried to make small talk a few more times, but looking at him directly proved to be difficult. He left the moment the bell rang, dreading the period after next when he would sit with Sokka again. Blessedly, the next break was lunch with Toph.

She immediately sat down at their table and leaned forward on her elbows.

“So! Spill.”

“Something’s wrong. I’m having… problems.”

“Sounds emo. Elaborate?”

“He makes me nervous.”

Toph laughed. “Everyone makes you nervous. That’s why you only have, like, two friends.”

She had a point.

“I’ll try harder next period.”

“Good! Anyway.” And she spent the rest of lunch complaining about math in her way that was both annoying as hell and very funny.

Zuko walked into English with much more composition and sat down next to Sokka, who somehow looked even more surprised.

“Hi, Sokka.”

“Hi, Zuko!”

And that was that until they had to pick partners for AP multiple choice practice, and Sokka. Picked him. Which was fully unexpected.

Sokka sucked at AP multiple choice practice.

“So, I got A, because… the author… liked trees? I think?”

“The I got B because the whole thing was a metaphor for childhood, and the answer is-” he checked the answer sheet- “B.”

“It was a metaphor?”

Sokka really, really sucked at AP multiple choice practice.

“Yes.”

He laughed. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Exams were in a month, so Sokka was clearly screwed, unless. Unless, an opportunity arose.

“Why don’t you come over to my house? I’m pretty good at this, I could help you study.”

Another blinding smile. “Yes! Well- I have practice today. Is tomorrow okay?”

Zuko found himself smiling back, just a little. “Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked it! I'll try to do more soon!! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> woohoo lesbians

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am terrible. I am so terrible. I recently graduated high school and senior year was crazy but now it's summer which means maybe I will stop abandoning this. I am so sorry. Please take this shitty little chapter as my apology, it's just Toph constantly not realizing how gay she is lol

Ok, so it wasn’t that Toph disliked Katara.

Really.

She didn’t.

It was just, oof, that girl was a lot. She was running for student body president and had straight A’s and would probably be valedictorian next year, plus having founded the Marine Biology club which was shockingly popular- did the girl have free time? Like, did she sleep? She seemed like the kind of person who rolled out of bed with their hair curled and their shirt buttoned up to the top collar. All her skirts had pockets. Was she human?

But Toph could never dislike her. She was Aang’s best friend, and she made him happy- something Toph didn’t always have the skill to do- and she was admittedly quite pretty. Toph could only speculate on details but her hair was long and flowy and her voice was strong and confident- these were the things that stood out. At close proximity her eyes were very blue, almost shockingly so. So were Sokka’s, of course- they were disarming. She understood how Zuko could fall for eyes like that.

But anyway. She didn’t dislike Katara, the girl just made her a bit… apprehensive. She said she’d help Zuko, and she would, but jesus, where to start? They had plenty of classes together, but Katara was much more a “sit in the front and ask way too many questions” kind of person while Toph was more of a “sit in the very back and only submit snarky comments” sort of gal. That didn’t add up to friendship opportunity. Toph ran over her schedule in her head- she had lunch, gym, biology, and math. Ugh. Math. She didn’t know which would work- Katara got very in the zone in gym which was intimidating, and made her hard to simply sidle up to. She had her little smart people table for lunch, which Toph didn’t feel like facing. Math was her worst class and Katara did really well in it- could be a chance for some tutoring there. Maybe.

Toph spent lunch complaining about math and trying to convince Zuko to try a little harder with The Plan, while the big emo loser sat mooning over Katara from across the lunchroom. At one point she noticed him and smiled. Toph genuinely thought he would have a heart attack then and there but he managed a feeble wave.

An excellent chance presented itself in 8th period, biology. Dr. Pathik had them choose lab partners. Toph basically speedwalked to Katara, sitting down next to her and muttering “Heysowe’relabpartnershopethat’scool.”

“Uh. What?” Katara smiled.

“We’re lab partners. Hope that’s cool.”

“Do I have any choice in this.”

“... No?”

Katara laughed. “Okay, sounds good.”

The rest of the period was spent planning, writing down independant and dependant variables, all that jazz. This was something Toph was actually pretty good at- she looked through a textbook with her magnifier as Katara attempted a thesis. Pathik was generally cool, but would not supply any printed outline for lab papers and expected extreme detail. Well, it was AP.

Toph glanced over to Katara. “How’s it coming?”

“Okay, I think. Wanna read over it?” Katara slid the paper over. Toph scanned it quickly and nodded.

“Pretty solid. I like it.”

Katara took the paper back. “It’s really cool that you’re doing this as a sophomore, you know. Impressive.”

Toph laughed. “I mean, it’s the only school thing I’m really good at, so Roku’s kind of got his hopes on it. Gotta have something to make him proud, right?”

“Roku’s a good man. I’m sure there’s a lot of things he’s proud of you for- but I agree that you are really good at it.” Katara returned to writing.

Ugh, that was so Katara, saying nice, polite things. Ugh. You can’t just say those things to people. How did she respond to that? She decided not to.

\---------

The walk home with Zuko was pretty good. He seemed pleased with himself when she met him in front of the school, slouching a bit less and smiling, which was unlike him. They began the walk in silence.

“So,” started Toph.

“So?”

“You seem happy.”

“Well…”

“Did you make any headway with Sokka? Please say yes.”

“Well…..”

“Don’t do this to me, man.”

“We’re studying at my house tomorrow.”

“Really?!”

“Yep.”

“YES!” Toph legitimately leapt for joy. Yes, she was super lame.

“And you? Anything with Katara?”

“Oh, you mean my new lab partner?”

“Really?”

“You underestimate me, sir.”

Zuko laughed. “You’re the best, Toph. I know it’s a dumb plan, but I’m glad you’re doing it with me.”

Toph snickered.

“What?”

“Heh- doing it with you.”

“Ugh, moment ruined.”

They both smiled the rest of the way home.


End file.
